


lost and found each other

by mimosaeyes



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Episode Tag, Existential Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Moral Dilemmas, Self-Doubt, in which I continue to carve bittersweet imagery of hope out of each entity, post-173, post-174, references to 151
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:34:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25034770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mimosaeyes/pseuds/mimosaeyes
Summary: “You were upset about Simon, though,” Jon muses. “And I don’t think it was because of the rollercoaster thing. Not really.”Post-174, with references to 173 and 151. Jon and Martin anchor each other in the Vast, and discuss agency and significance.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 18
Kudos: 155





	lost and found each other

**Author's Note:**

> [animaginaryquill](https://archiveofourown.org/users/animaginaryquill) broke beta land speed records on this. Thanks fren!
> 
> Title from Divide by Bastille.

The Vast is not just big — it’s bright, too. There had been an interlude of ordinary apocalyptic sky between the Dark and this, but somehow it’s like Martin’s eyes haven’t adjusted. The light hurts, and disorients him. It doesn’t have a clear source, like the sun; it’s simply ubiquitous, uniform in intensity no matter which way he looks, and unchanging over time.

It bleaches the colour of the ground, their clothes, his very skin. Three days? Another three hours, he thinks, and he might already be transparent. Incorporeal. He might blow away on the next gust of wind that radiates outward from each point where the Great Beast takes another ponderous step.

That impact has been the only sound for so long that he startles a little when Jon suddenly speaks. “Are you alright, Martin?”

Oddly, hearing his name brings him back to himself. He gives himself a mental shake and blinks against the light. His vision swims for a second, then focuses on Jon. 

“Fine,” he answers. “Why?”

Jon cants his head at him, while keeping his feet angled unerringly in the direction of the Panopticon. “I just thought... well. If the Vast is the fear of your own insignificance, it’s not all that different from the Lonely, is it.”

Martin furrows his brow. “How d’you mean?”

“Losing yourself in too much space, losing yourself because you feel disconnected from other people, because they seem so far away...” Jon lifts his shoulders in a halfhearted shrug, shifting his backpack’s weight around. “I lost you in that house. And you’ve been quiet for so long, I just — I wanted to remind you you’re not walking through this barren wasteland alone.” His lips lift in the shadow of a smile on these last words, wry and a little self-deprecating.

“Oh,” Martin says. His experience of the last who-knows-how-much-time realigns itself in his head, and he repeats, “ _Oh._ ”

Stumbling slightly in his rush, he reaches for Jon’s hand and clasps it tightly. Jon returns the pressure after a brief moment of hesitation. The sensation grounds him at once, reminding him exactly where and who he is in these homogeneous, apparently boundless surroundings. He sighs with something akin to relief.

“Martin?” Jon says tentatively.

“Better,” he responds, answering the unspoken question. “Thank you. I... I didn’t even realise.”

In response, Jon only makes a vague contented noise, and runs his thumb over Martin’s hand once, twice.

They walk on like that for some time before Martin finishes processing the rest of what Jon had said. “Wait,” he says slowly, “how long was I not talking?”

He half-expects Jon to give him one of his infuriating, cop-out answers, but instead, with barely a pause, he gets: “Thirty-one hours, seventeen minutes, and twenty-six seconds.”

Martin stops walking so he can properly rail on Jon, though the effect is rather spoiled by the fact that they’re still holding hands. “So much for Mr. Cryptic!” he says accusingly. “Mr. ‘What Counts As A Day? What An Excellent Question’. You know _exactly_ how much time is passing.” 

He doesn’t really mean for it to sting, but he’s tired and apparently has been dissociating for more than a day, so his joking tone ends up far sharper than he intends. Wincing, Jon pulls his hand back from Martin’s, and rubs it absently. 

“No,” he explains, “I know how long I take to breathe in and out. Since the terrain is flat here, the rate was steady. I can’t do it all the time, it takes conscious effort. I only started counting because you seemed upset with me, and I didn’t know how long to give you — ha — space.”

“Why would I be upset with you?”

Jon scuffs his shoe against the ground. A muscle jumps in his jaw. “Because I didn’t kill Simon Fairchild, but I did kill all those other avatars. I didn’t smite them out of... righteousness, I did it for petty revenge.”

Gods or whichever-dread-power-it-may-concern help him, his boyfriend cannot process his own emotions. “Jon,” Martin says patiently, “I’m not upset with you.” He pauses, making his voice even gentler. “You’re upset with yourself.”

Jon looks up, his mouth falling open slightly. “Oh,” he says, echoing Martin earlier. 

It occurs to Martin how weird it is that they seem to know each other better than they know themselves. There might be a lot of tension between them due to various end-of-the-world reasons, but that still holds true.

“You _were_ upset about Simon, though,” Jon muses. “And I don’t think it was because of the rollercoaster thing. Not really.”

Martin sighs. Now it’s his turn to stare at his feet and scuff his shoe. “Yes,” he admits. “I’ve been quiet because I’ve been thinking.”

A beat. “Are you willing to tell me what about?” Jon asks softly. Martin silently appreciates his effort to avoid asking a direct question and compelling an answer out of him.

“Peter Lukas asked Simon to explain the Extinction to me. He didn’t _do_ anything, sure, but — but that’s just it. He was okay with Armageddon happening. He said it didn’t matter, cosmically, whether people ever lived, or whether they suffered before they died. He said it was about the _big picture_.” He takes a deep breath. “When we left those kids in the Dark...”

He trails off, biting his lip, but Jon comes in, fierce and certain. “ _No_ , Martin. It’s not the same thing.”

“Isn’t it?” Martin offers him a crooked smile. 

Jon is already shaking his head. “You don’t believe that. I listened to your tapes, every one of them. I remember what you said to Fairchild. You told him you thought our experience of the universe has value, even if it doesn’t last. Even if it’s only a, a blip in the universe.” 

He takes a step closer, cupping his hand over the back of Martin’s neck. “Don’t you still believe that?”

Martin’s breath catches in his throat. 

“I have to,” he whispers, in a vast, near-featureless plain. Under a sky that feels like it looks at him and sees absolutely nothing of significance there. “I have to believe that what we do matters.”

Jon presses their foreheads together. “Then it does.”

Their voices are almost lost in the great expanse. But only almost.

**Author's Note:**

> Me after each TMA episode: is this a chance to turn Entities’ domains into elaborate, cheesy metaphors about hope and empowerment?
> 
> Available on tumblr [here](https://mimosaeyes.tumblr.com/post/622544553111584768/you-were-upset-about-simon-though-jon-muses).


End file.
